Palm Pre, iPhone Killer? Not Quite.

So with the upcoming release of the Palm Pre and the rumoured release of a new iPhone following WWDC. People are saying that the Palm Pre, is the iPhone killer.

Over the last few years touchscreen devices has become very mainstream and most brands have their touchscreen phone, however none of them have come close to what the iPhone has done to the market.

However even with the Palms quicker CPU and sleek design with a physical QWERTY keyboard, here are the reasons that the Palm Pre will not kill the iPhone.

The App Store, with over 1 Billion downloads since it’s launch there has never been a mobile software store like it.

Games, you may not think it but the iPhone is considered a gaming platform as well as a Phone, due to the App Store and the works of the likes of Electronic Arts, the iPhone have some high quality games. However at current standing the Palm Pre has no games and unless Palm allow deeper access to their SDK, developers will struggle.

Show off factor, Yes it may seem a strange thing to compare but if you pull an iPhone out people are drawn to it, they want to see the Apps they’ve seen on TV and heard everyone talk about, but with the Palm Pre people will just assume it’s just another touchscreen phone.

The Palm Pre does come with a 3 Megapixel camera with LED flash but for most people who own an iPhone 2 Megapixels works fine.

Easy typing, this is only true for some people but I now find it a lot easier to type on an iPhone keyboard than a normal mobile phone, however with a QWERTY keyboard it may be easier but the keys look small and aren’t as adaptable as the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard.

iTunes, Yes some love it and some hate it, but it gives users an easy well to purchase new music on the go and a central place for all their media.

Those are just a few reasons that I believe the Palm Pre will not kill the Apple iPhone, it may give a bit of a go at it, but overall the iPhone will remain at the head of it’s market, majority because of the App Store and the 1000’s of Apps.

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 25th, 2009 at 10:59 PM and is filed under iPhone. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Yeah you’re not an iphone fanboy… synergy, multitasking, speedy web browser, universal search; all just a few things which will bring a huge fan-base to the Pre. The iphone is a revolutionary phone but the smartphone marketplace is plenty large. The app store and “show off factor” are both things that come in time thus it’s not fair to compare before the phone is released!

Well James, yes I may be very fond of my iPhone and I do infact see the Pre as a very good device but the iPhone can do multitasking but it’s known that doing such drains battery life.
Universal search is coming in iPhone OS 3.0 also.

The Pre will be a very good phone, but I don’t see it beating iPhone mainly down to the fact the Apple App Store is such a huge platform.

First of, you should learn to use a real email address as using sam@islame.com makes you look foolish and doesn’t allow me to reply to you directly.

Second of all the App Store is controlled by Apple to ensure the quality of App’s is above a set standard, addmitted they make a few mistakes. Also Cydia and Icy can install Apps without Apple’s control.

And if you have an iPhone you will notice if you get it out people around you are intrested and it still happens.
And I’m sorry but if you watch the reviews of the Pre such as CNET’s review the keyboard is bad even for small hands, plus no on-screen keyboard restricts users.

And if you read into the Palm Pre syncing with iTunes you would find out it requires you to do some hacking to get it to work. Plus no DRM content will be put on the Pre, unlike the iPhone.

Plus seeing as the Palm Pre has terrible battery life, some don’t consider it even a coporate device therefore it cannot compete against the iPhone in that market.

No DRM content can be put on the Pre but can on the iPhone? If I am understanding you correctly I certainly don’t want a product that only DRM content can be put on it. I had a Palm V, Tungsten T3, Treo 650 and I still secretly am in love with Palm. While I believe the iPhone has it’s place I, and I doubt many other people, don’t buy a cell phone for the WOW factor. I stopped trying to impress people with material things a while ago. Not trying to say you are like that, just saying that when I choose my next cell phone the Pre is going to be right in the running with the iPhone and the blackberry Bold (unless they fix some issues with the Storm). I will choose the phone that serves most of my needs and since I have really tiny hands is the most comfortable. The Pre (so I heard) will allow me to play some of my killer old school apps too if you count those as applications the Palm Pre has alot of applications coming right out of the box.

I still, like you, don’t think the Palm Pre is an iPhone killer. There is no such animal. There is just a broad smartphone market where people become really attached to their phones. (be it blackberry, iPhone, palm, instinct, android, whatever.) At least you are passionate enough to write about it and I respect that tons!

I’m on about TV Shows and such like which won’t be able to be put onto the Pre, I know no one likes DRM but some services still do have it.

Also as Apple pointed out today so far there are only 12 App’s for the Pre. But until they start making non-web apps it can’t compete with the iPhone in the App sense as there all web apps, like the iPhone was before it got the App Store.

I think that it’s a good start but until they fix the problems it’s had upon launch, get the app store out of beta and allow non-web app’s I think the Pre will be a great smartphone.

Ok, I’m not sure why everyone replying disagrees with the WOW factor comment. It’s an extremely valid point. Let’s face it, when the iPhone first came out, everyone wanted to hold one, play with one, or even just see one. I bought my dad a 16gig one for father’s day last year and they were sold out everywhere. I had to wait in lines that went into the street. Keep in mind this was for the second generation iPhone, not even the first. You might have different reasons for picking which phone you buy, but just because you personally may not want to wow people with your phone, that does not mean the majority of people don’t want to. People still enjoy playing with other peoples’ iPhones. Sam was absolutely right in saying that this Pre is just gonna look like any ordinary smart phone. There is nothing about it that really blows people out of the water. The iPhone was really the first big touch screen phone, so to a lot of people, everything else just seems like a lesser substitute. One thing that is really worth considering, which I have done 0 research on, is whether or not the iPhone 3.0 will have picture messaging. That is a HUGE deterrent for a lot of people. Overall, however, the iPhone is and will remain strong for a good while.

One of the largest advantages the Palm Pre has over the iPhone is true multi-tasking for applications. This has been an achilles heel for the iPhone since launch. Outside of a few core applications, such as the phone and iPod player, an iPhone user must completely exit out of one application in order to use another. The the Palm Pre you can launch a 3rd party app like Pandora and be listening to music while surfing the web, checking email or anything else.

Also each internet browser “tab” you have open is treated as its own application. With the iPhone you have to manually refresh the pages or it will lose the information and you will have to reload the webpage which takes time. Not so with the Pre.

I don’t care so much about “wow” factor. I prefer the slightly smaller form factor of the Pre and the feel of it in my palm. I predict the standard Palm demographic of business executives and physicians preferring the Pre over the iPhone, if the software developers follow suit.

Admittedly the App Store is a serious advantage for the iPhone. I seriously doubt Palm will have even come close to its current success in a years time.

Well it doesn’t come with the iPhone as standard but I have multi-tasking on my iPhone using a 3rd Party Cydia App. The only problem is, that because of the hardware it’s not the most stable thing but in the new iPhone it will run a lot better. The thing with true multi-tasking is that, as pointed out by reviewers, the Palm Pre’s battery life is terrible and thus why Apple didn’t implement it themselfs and thats why they created the notification system.

I do see that with the browser but to be honest as most users I don’t use the browser that often only if I really need to as most of the things I need are now directly intergrated into Apps.

I agree with the demographic there but the thing buisness users need is reliable battery and it’s something, at this time, the Pre doesn’t have.